Joe Biden, the Anti-Busing Democrat

[Pandaguineapig]

Eh Busing is an issue from another time and its biggest legacy today might be white flight, if democrats could look beyond Robert Byrd being a klansman they'll look beyond this

[Sumner 1868]

Eh Busing is an issue from another time and its biggest legacy today might be white flight, if democrats could look beyond Robert Byrd being a klansman they'll look beyond this

I mean, we all know what IceSpear would say about that.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Dems had Bill Clinton who ushered in more conservative stances of issue after issue like Welfare Reform, that ushered in the Gingrich Revolution. Biden was part of that during the Clarence Thomas hearings on Anita Hill, which he chaired.

Biden is more liberal than Trump, on the issues of guns and Wallstreet tax cuts for the superwealthy, that all that matters.  He will have a fight in the Democratic primary that he can succeed in.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Yeah this will no doubt be a relevant and hot button issue in 2020.

No one will care.

Hillary's super predator comment was a relatively big deal during the primaries, wasn't it?

This is really where this becomes a weakness for Biden. All that matters nowadays are optics, even they are over a mostly irrelevant issue.

[Orser67]

No, busing was a well-intentioned idea that took things too far. The best way to remedy school inequality (once local public school systems have been integrated) is through a combination of federal aid and local engagement, not through forcing non-geographically continuous areas to integrate.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Serious question: does anyone here think busing was a success?

[Blue3]

Joe Biden isn't the best fit for 2020... but come on, busing was and is still unpopular, and it was last a real issue before I was born.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Serious question: does anyone here think busing was a success?

It was the least worst way to "integrate" the schools at the time, in eras before the suburbs were significantly integrated.

If Joe Biden had not opposed busing, his political career would not have gotten off the ground.  People moved to Delaware to get away from the inner city schools of Philadelphia and Baltimore, and they didn't want their kids bused to inner city schools in Wilmington or Dover. 

The issue was a fair one.  What school your kids go to often is determined by what school district you live in.  Imagine how parents, especially working class parents who spent more than they would have to live in a school district which they believed to be at the top of the heap, only to learn that their kids would be bussed to another school, significantly further away from home, for the sake of racial integration.  A school that, likely, was in a less safe neighborhood and which would have a larger percentage of students with social and behavioral problems.  Parents (mostly white parents) were asked to shoulder the burden of bringing about racial equality in education at the expense of the environment their kids would be at in school, and an environment that they bought more house than they ordinarily wanted to in order to ensure that their kids went to "good schools".

But for a number of minority families, who had kids who were intelligent and talented, but who were going to schools that often had to deal with a large number of student social and behavioral problems, busing was a Godsend; their kids could go to a school where there was meaningful focus on academics, and where behavioral disruptions were less likely to interfere with the school day.  The question of was it fair to white parents who moved to get their kids in a better school is legitimate, but so is the question of whether or not black parents should go through life knowing that their kids go to substandard schools because of the tax base of their poorer communities and housing patterns.

"Local control of schools" has, in fact, been a failure in terms of providing schools of equal quality and safety for every student.  That's the real issue.  Now that the suburbs have become more integrated, perhaps communities and states can get down to business on this issue.  The issue of school integration has been solved, but the issue of uniform quality of public education has not been solved.

[reagan84]

75-80 percent of voters north and south were against busing. 

[LabourJersey]

Yeah this will no doubt be a relevant and hot button issue in 2020.

No one will care.

Hillary's super predator comment was a relatively big deal during the primaries, wasn't it?

This is really where this becomes a weakness for Biden. All that matters nowadays are optics, even they are over a mostly irrelevant issue.

[junior chįmp]

Joe Biden isn't the best fit for 2020... but come on, busing was and is still unpopular, and it was last a real issue before I was born.

The truth is nobody actually cares about Joe Biden's position on busing but the fact its being brought up shows you that the base of the Democratic party is looking for any reason to oppose Joe Biden because he's a lousy candidate.

[Zaybay]

Joe Biden isn't the best fit for 2020... but come on, busing was and is still unpopular, and it was last a real issue before I was born.

The truth is nobody actually cares about Joe Biden's position on busing but the fact its being brought up shows you that the base of the Democratic party is looking for any reason to oppose Joe Biden because he's a lousy candidate.

Emphasis on his quality.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Busing was stupid, so I guess Biden seems a bit more rogue-ish to me now. He's the Democrat I probably fear the most.